


In You

by magicknickers



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: 7spells, Ficlet, Gen, Gen Fic, One Shot, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-25
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 12:22:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicknickers/pseuds/magicknickers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is a woman, the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In You

**Author's Note:**

> Although I don't write it often, dark!fic is my favorite. So I went and signed up for 7spells over at lj (why Meghan why you have so many other fests to write for) with Lucius Malfoy. Who's my baby, evil little shit that he is. So here we have the first fill, using the prompt _red_. :)
> 
> Warnings for violence, angst, and a whole lot of implications.

There is something in the killing.

 

The way that flesh leaves bone and blood puddles red—that is detail, that is simply _messiness_ —

 

There is something in the spirit, if you will _(you laugh even as you think it, because really, the spirit? the soul? that brings to mind the question of morality and an afterlife, which are both things you can't believe in)_ something in the way fear taints the air and instinct holds sway, making beasts of men and stripping them of their humanity.

 

There is something about facing one's mortality, about facing the fragility of human life that holds a terrible sort of beauty.

 

To watch it go, to feel that moment when life hangs so perfectly between _before_ and _after—_

 

To _observe_ it as it is happening, right there, right before you, right _because of you_.

 

_(you laugh once more, this time because you are not dead, because fear will keep you from ever being on the other end)_

 

Sometimes, the knowledge tempts you.

*

You meet Tom on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of the summer just after your fifth year.

 

“My son, Lucius,” your father tells him, and there is a hand in your hand and a smile facing your smile and it feels as if your very being is being sucked up into that perfect, terrible face. It smells like cigarette smoke and magic in your father's study, and you breathe it into yourself—up into your soul _(you laugh because)_ where it settles like a veil _._ You want to call it comforting, but there is another word for it—for the feeling of it—that you cannot find at this moment.

 

God help you if you have ever seen anybody more beautiful than Tom. You'd follow such beauty to hell.

*

It is a woman, the first time.

 

She is dark-haired and dark-skinned—a _Moor_ , his mother would say—and her body is lush and full like the bodies of Muggles tend to be.

 

Her blood is beautiful when it pours out of her, and the crunch of her arm collapsing underneath your grip is so _lovely_ that you feel as if you must be in as much pain as she is _._ She screams once—it is a long, endless sound that is so loud that you feel as if her soul will spill out of her mouth with it; you _wish_ that her soul would spill out so that you could grasp it in your hands—before you smash her face into the cobbled stone of the alleyway you have led her to, the pleasure you feel nearly buckling your knees. The scream cuts off so suddenly that it is comical, and you laugh, your face and your hands sticky with the redness of fresh blood.

 

Gasping, you let go of her neck, and it is as if the last remnants _(the spirit, the soul)_ of her slide into you-- _become_ you. The blood will flake off and wash away, but _that_ will linger.

 

Yes, there is something in the killing.

*

“ _Lucius_ ,” the Dark Lord whispers _(you sometimes see Tom in the slippery sound of his voice, in the white expanse of perfect, terrible skin)_ to you, your own name crawling into your ear and making you shiver as if you've been touched. “I require your son.”

 

The terror that grips you then is only your own. In the vaguest part of your mind you wonder at the feeling of such acute terror, like the terror that woman must have felt, terror that you have no use for.

 

“Yes, my Lord,” you answer, and the knowledge tempts you.

*

It is a man, the last time—a wizard.

 

He bleeds the same as any Muggle, though, the fine bones of his hand crunching underneath your grip as if he is made of paper and glass.

 

“Lucius,” he begs, the redness of his blood dripping from his mouth as he chokes on it, throat gurgling pathetically. He gives way beneath you, cheekbone shattering and skull cracking until his face is a malformed lump of broken flesh. Bruises bloom like flowers on his fair flesh. You smile.

*

“ _Lucius_ ,” something whispers now, and it is as if the very walls of Azkaban are speaking to you. Death is pervasive hear, sneaking up under the bars of the cell that keeps you and hanging in the air around you like so much smoke. You breathe it into yourself—up, into your soul _(you are still laughing)—_ and now it is comforting in its familiarity, because it is all that you have.

 

Your hands will itch for your wand and you can very nearly feel the sticky darkness of fresh blood on your cheeks, underneath your nails and like red paint in your hair.

 

Eventually, the Dementors take that, too, though, and you are left with only your own soul residing in you.

 


End file.
